


It's crucial that you see the truth

by cutebutpsyco



Series: Stephen Strange Bingo 2019 Fills [1]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Gen, Implied Substances Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Stephen Strange Bingo 2019, implied suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 19:57:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18239528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutebutpsyco/pseuds/cutebutpsyco
Summary: STEPHEN STRANGE BINGO. FILL: DOCTOR PALMER ||Christine knew Stephen. She knew he wasn’t a bad person, she knew he pretends to be one because that was the best way to move around in the world, and she knew he could understand people. She knew he could say the exact thing to hurt others the most. It was just the first time she was on the receiving side of that.





	It's crucial that you see the truth

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Mature for the warnings in the tags. Everything is just mentioned, but I though it was better to say it.  
> I love Christine so much and I wanted to write from her POV Stephen destroying himself while try to gain back the use of his hands because their entire relationship is too good for words and she deserves more appreciation. 
> 
> I had to admit that I made myself sad while writing this, so yeah, I'm sorry. On a side note, I don't really know if Stephen is millionaire rich but this makes sense to me so just pretend he is. 
> 
> Nothing belongs to me (and part of this is directly from Doctor Strange), un-betad as always, and title is from "All I wanted" by Daughter.

Christine knew Stephen, that was something by which she was surprised as much as everyone else, but she knew him, better than everyone else, better, maybe, than he knew himself. She could read him, she could see when the smile that rarely appeared on his lips was sincere and when he was just mocking the person at the receiving side of it.  
She could see him, for the real person he was, under that arrogant-self mask that he loved so much to wear. And she could see when he was broken, beaten, and how angry he pretended to be, how he wanted to blame someone else because blaming himself was too painful. 

But she knew as well that he was right, and she knew that he was the only person who could have saved his hands. Nick was a good doctor, but Nick wasn’t Stephen. And while Christine had worked enough with Strange to know his methods, she wasn’t a neurosurgeon, she couldn’t help him, it didn’t matter how much she wanted to. 

The only thing she could do was uìjust watch at him, while Nick at her side struggled to find words to comfort him. There weren’t. It was sad but Christine knew there was nothing either of them could say to make Stephen feel better. That man got all himself for his job and he sacrificed everything to be the best in what he did. She could blame him for being selfish, but at the same time, Christine knew he wouldn’t have asked to join him if he didn’t appreciate her company. And that was the worse thing. She could have been on the car, she could have saved him.  
Stephen blamed Nick for his hands, but Christine knew she had as much fault as the other doctor had. And the only thing she could do for Stephen, now, was being at his side, even if she was sure it wouldn’t be something easy to do. 

She couldn’t stop him, she couldn’t watch him do that to his body and the only time she tried to speak with him, he pushed her away. So she said nothing, she tried to be there for him, to be the person Stephen had always needed and never wanted to ask for. She could be that person, she loved him, as a lover, as a friend, as the person he needed at that moment. That was the only thing she could do for him, and that broke her heart, day by day, slowly.

She saw him signed informed consent for every experimental treatment he could find and she watched him struggling to eat everything that was more complicated than a sandwich. She never said anything, she never tried to help him because she knew him and was sure it wouldn’t have been appreciated. But she was there. At the point that she found herself wondering if he would have taken care of himself without her.  
And when she didn’t blame herself, Christine hated the entire situation. Stephen was the best of their surgeons, he was a walking god at the Metro General and he lost everything. It wasn’t fair, it simply wasn’t. 

She watched through the huge windows of every operation theatre Stephen entered, wishing to be inside and knowing that she couldn’t be of any help, and she held her breath, hands shaking for the fear that it would have been another useless attempt, silent tears running down her cheeks. She watched the man she respected more than everyone else broken and helpless after every one of those operations and silently wished for the next one to be the good one. Though she knew better. And she wouldn’t ever bring herself to tell him.  
Because she was too afraid that crushing the last shred of hope Stephen still had might kill him. 

She saw him at his lowest, and still, the only thing she could do was to bring him up. Maybe that was her place, it had always been that one since they started dating. Stephen never saw her as a pretty face to show off, he gave her his trust, the thing he valued and treasured the most. And Christine did everything in her power to keep his trust, even when it meant ignoring the drinking and the pills abuse. She couldn’t tell him she knew, being too afraid that call him out on that would have brought Stephen closer to death.

It was something hard to do because she couldn’t simply ignore it, ignore that he was worsening his own condition, he was going through too many operations, more than a human body could bear in such a short time, and he was wasting all his money, hoping in something that she saw further and further achievable. 

Christine suspected he knew, by now, she was checking on him, but he seemed not to care and the woman wasn’t going to bring that up anytime soon. She knew Stephen, he didn’t like to tell others when things were a mess. 

“Hi,” She said, entering in her friend’s house, the usual Subway takeaway bag in her hand. Stephen told her about a friend in Paris, someone who was almost as good as he was. She didn’t want to ask, but the tablet in the middle of Stephen’s living room was enough of an answer by itself. “He won’t do it.” It was a statement, the words burning in her throat before finding their way out from her mouth. 

Stephen shook his head, pain clear in his eyes. Christine wished he could just stop, stop trying to find a way that would bring to nothing but hurt him more. But she knew him, she knew he wouldn’t stop until he either had his hands back or they couldn’t be used for anything. 

“He’s a hack,” Strange continued, walking toward her. “There’s a new procedure in Tokyo. They culture donor stem cells and then harvest them and 3D-print a scaffold. If I could get a loan together, just -”

And that was enough. Christine had no idea how much Stephen spent until that exact moment. She didn’t want to look into his bank account, she wouldn’t ever do that but the man was rich, millionaire rich. “Stephen…” She said, knowing she sounded heartbroken. 

“A small loan, 200.000,” He continued. 

“Stephen,” She tried, again, and this time, he rose his eyes on her. “You’ve always spent money as fast as you could make it but now you are spending money you don’t even have. Maybe it’s time you consider stopping.”

It was there, it had always been there, she knew him, she knew he would never accept that, but she watched him stubbornly trying to pretend nothing happened, she watched him calling favours from anyone, she watched him going up to alcohol first and painkillers then and she said nothing. But now, now he was risking everything, and he had no certainties it would be worth it. And she couldn’t watch him do it anymore. Even if she knew she was on thin ice. 

“No. Now It’s exactly the time not to stop. Because you see, I’m not getting any better!”

 _And you won’t,_ She thought, hoping that he could see, hoping that he could understand. “But this isn’t medicine anymore, this is mania. Some things just can’t be fixed.” 

She was tired and broken, and she knew she said the wrong thing the moment the words were out in the open. She knew Stephen would have taken it as if she choose something else over him, as if it was a battle, a fight, and she chooses his enemy. He knew at his shaking hands and said the thing Christine feared the most: “Life, without my work…”

“Is still life,” She had to tell that she had to try to make him understand, she had because she was afraid he could forget about it, because she knew it wasn’t a life worth living, not for Stephen. “This isn’t the end, there are other things that can give your life meaning.”

“Like what? Like you?” Christine knew Stephen. She knew he wasn’t a bad person, she knew he pretends to be one because that was the best way to move around in the world, and she knew he could understand people. She knew he could say the exact thing to hurt others the most. It was just the first time she was on the receiving side of that. 

“And this is the part when you apologize,” She answered because she knew him because she was ready for that. Even if it hurt, even if it seemed like he meant that for real. 

“This is the part where you leave.”

“Fine, I can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore,” Christine replied, and, for once, it was out in the open. She stayed by his side because she loved him, she tried to be there for him, to help to find a solution, and he was repaying her with that, he was building up his walls with her too. 

“Too difficult for you, is it?” Christine didn’t need to turn to know that he was smirking, that little smile he reserved to anyone else when he solved a new case. She hated to be at the receiving side of that too. Stephen was treating her like he did with everyone else, and that broke Christine’s hear in a billion pieces. 

“Yes, it is. And it breaks my heart to see you this way.”

“No,” He was almost pleading, but the commanding tone was still there. “Don’t pity me.”

“I’m not pitying you.”

“Oh yeah? Then what are you doing here? Bringing cheese and wine as if we’re old friend going for a picnic?” The question hit her more than she was ready to. She had to bite her lower lip. She was ready for him behaving like that, but not bringing their friendship in the mix. That was the one thing she thought he won’t ever deny. Apparently, though, she meant much more to her than it did for him. “We are not friends, Christine. We were barely lovers. You just love a sob story, don’t you? Is that what I am to you now? Poor Stephen Strange, charity case. He finally needs me. Another dreg of humanity for you to work on.” 

She wanted to scream, she wanted to hit him and tell him that she cared about him, that she always had and she was there for that very same reason, but she was sure that would have just proved him right, even if it wasn’t the truth. So she just stood there, following his erratic walking with her eyes, feeling them becoming glossy with tears. “Fix him up and send him back into the world, heart is just humming… You care so much! Don’t you?!”

She looked at him, the man she loved, the man for whom she gave up her free time in the past months, and she couldn’t see anything but the cold, calculating neurosurgeon everyone saw. The man she learned to know, the kind, smart soul behind those icy eyes was gone. The person she knew turned rapidly into dust in front of her eyes. Because he knew he was hurting her, he knew he was saying the words that would have Christine walk away, and he was using them all. And she couldn’t bear that, not when all she wanted was to try to save him. 

“Goodbye, Stephen,” Christine said and her heart broke again over those words while she walked away from Stephen’s penthouse.

**Author's Note:**

> I live for kudos, comments and for Christine being loved and appreciated.  
>  **wanna say 'hi'? do you have a prompt for me?** find me on [tumblr](https://ironstrange-is-the-endgame.tumblr.com/).  
> find my entire bingo card on [dreamwidth](https://myrcellabaratheon.dreamwidth.org/7206.html) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/541820).


End file.
